More PKNIC screwups

Tuesday 29th May 2007

More PKNIC screwups

Once again, one of Pakistan's biggest ISP has fallen victim to the
anathema that is PKNIC. It was just
over a month ago that they somehow changed entries for Dancom's domains
in their database and this was done without any request from our side
and without even informing us. Our domain and hence our email, websites
and a number of other services were cut off from the rest of the world
due to this.

They have now done it again. Though the latest
entries are still valid and they haven't had a major impact, they are
not what they should be. We have attempted to reach them on their staff
email address, the only point of contact, without any reply so far.

So to summarize, the sole authority for the .PK top
level domain charges exorbitant fees (more than $30 a year) for domain
registrations and still makes blunders that cause unacceptable outages
for an industry that thrives on high availability. To top it off, they
have no street address or support number. These incidences make it seem
like we live in a banana republic with no hope for those that depend on
things being done correctly.

With most of the world's TLDs becoming available for registration
through more than one registrar, I think it is about time that we got
rid of PKNIC or forced them to change their ways. They have had a good
profitable run for many years now and enough is enough. I don't know if
the last issue reached the right people at the Pakistan Telecom Authority
(PTA), but this time, I'll make sure that it does and something solid
is done about it.

I am told that PKNIC is run by one person who runs this as a side business and has made handsomely from the rights - It was handed to him in the late 80's while he was a graduate student in the US and has since run the affair as a side business in Pakistan ever since he has an iron clad grip and is making tons and has still not setup a decent outfit even yet. Some investigation needs to be done in this regard

On 30th May 2007, at 23:41pm PKT, Atif said:

Yet another example of monopoly. We should immediately get rid of that single person ill managed authority.

On 31st May 2007, at 11:43am PKT, Zaeem said:

In response to Atif:

Get rid of Ashar and who manages PKNIC then? Easier said than done my friend!

Good God, I am not the only one utterly frustrated with their single point of contact, an e-mail address they never respond to.

Recently I purchased several PKNIC pre-paid cards to register .pk domains, and found that their system does not yet accept payments for .pk domains using their much touted pre-paid cards. The card only seems valid on the name.com.pk domains. With no reply to my constant e-mails, I am on the verge of losing serious money by having to pay for them using other options or losing business while waiting for them upgrade their system.

Hellish experience I would say, I am seriously thinking about contacting the ministry of IT to put them out of business.

On 12th September 2008, at 04:02am PKST, Ehsan said:

Yea PKNIC seems to suck , haven't had much experience but i was going to purchase prepaid cards to register a .com.pk domain , do they work or they don't even accept prepaid cards for .com.pk?

On 5th July 2009, at 07:41am PKST, Adnan said:

What you do is you complain to Verisign, the authority which has the registry. Tell them the problems you are going through with some solid evidence.
They will take care of it.
I own a couple of pk domains but haven't have any problems, maybe cause I used my credit card.